How Google Analytics Search Can Help Improve User Experience

Google Analytics is an amazing tool. There are so many features to help explain phenomena on your website and why users are interacting and using the site the way that they are. One useful tool i have food in Google Analytics is the Site Search feature. It tells marketers what is being typed into the search bar of your website.

Finding Site Search
To find site searches, log into google analytics. In the behavior section there is a subsection called "Site Search." This contains the categories Overview, Usage, Search Terms, and Search Pages. The overview provides a high-level look at the searches being conducted by users on a site. Usage explores site search status, including sessions without a search. Search Terms reviews the terms people are looking for while Search Pages covers the start page, search page, and which pages users end up on after their searches.

Using the Data
Once marketers have access to site search data on Google Analytics, they can use it to create a better user experience. For example, during the month of May there were 55 searches on the Google Beta website. Out of those 55 searches, 47 of them (or 85%) were for the same product, the gopher. Since Google knows that users are searching for this product they can feature it on the homepage or in a place that is more accessible to users to improve their experience. The Site Search function is extremely useful for ecommerce websites.

Google Analytics - Measuring Behavior

As companies begin to further analyze their website data, they are realizing that metrics like number of users on the site, page views, and unique visitors are just the tip of the website data iceberg. Taking a deeper dive into website behavior can give brands real insight into how their sites work, how people are using the website, and where changes can be made.

In Google Analytics under “behavior” there is an overview of how people are using the site. Further exploration of the behavior section will show metrics like the entrances and exits, which tells companies where people enter and leave their websites. If a lot of people tend to exit from a page when they are meant to click somewhere else, that brand can make the necessary changes. Page entrances also hints to the best external referrals that are bringing people onto the site. Showing these on a dashboard can allude to user flow without going too in-depth for companies. Another aspect of the behavior section is the content drill-down. The content drill-downs analyzes the pages users are spending the most time on. This shows the type of content users enjoy interacting with, and future content can be built in the same style. Aspects like the breakdown of the browsers shows the top internet browsers website traffic coming from, which can help optimize content.

The Future of Big Data & UX - Using Data to Design Better User Experiences

When it comes to design, marketers are already using data to move the needle when designing relevant user experiences. Henry's Digital Marketing Blog has a post covering tools like Crazy Egg that companies are using to gather data on the way their websites are being used. As big data gets even bigger we will begin to see creative companies utilizing this data to create models and tools that will lead to improved user experience design. Experience Dynamics created an infographic of 30 User Experience Statistics that should not be ignored. While the infographic is starting to age, it still offers amazing insight into online user experience and explains some important aspects of how user experience can impact a company’s bottom line. Based on this infographic, here are some user trends to look out for.

Efficiency

According to the infographic, 79% of users will abandon a site and search for another to complete the task if they do not like the experience. Mobile users are five times more likely to abandon a site if it isn’t optimized. While this information may seem obvious, it is extremely telling of just how willing users are to find the site with the best experience. Users will move onto another website if a site isn’t easy to use. As technology advances and brands use their data to improve products, user experience will become one of the defining differentiating factors for brands online. Understanding what makes a good user experience (right now it’s a solid mobile website) is crucial for brands, and will continue to be crucial as companies progress forward.

Online Conversions

It is no secret that the mobile experience directly contributes to online sales. 81% of shoppers research products and services online before they buy. 60% of consumers exclusively use mobile to make purchase decisions. If this isn’t enough information to convince brands to think mobile first, two out of three mobile users researching a product are looking to make a purchase the same day. In a world where the majority of the population checks their smartphone before even stepping out of bed in the morning, optimizing user experience for mobile is one of the most important things a brand can do. Keeping on top of mobile trends for user experience will help companies convert customers online, and continue to differentiate them in their category space.

Local Search

Mobile usage isn’t just important for online conversions. According to the infographic, 94% of smartphone users search for local information on their mobile phones. Searching is one thing, but 80% of local searches on mobile phones convert - small local businesses need to take note. User experience isn’t just to optimize the ecommerce experience anymore. The argument that local businesses do not need to optimize online is completely inaccurate. The opposite is actually true. Small local businesses benefit from being able to use long-tail search terms and search terms to improve their local SEO. Local businesses can make it easier for users to find them by optimizing their online content. They differentiate themselves from lager competitors by enhancing the experience for local users.

As companies continue to utilize big data to make changes to their online content, user experience will continue to be a differentiating factor for brands. Ensuring that sites have optimal experience will make them more efficient, and lead to more online conversions. Optimal user experiences are making local brands even more relevant and can help level the playing field for small businesses.    

Early Examples of Data Visualization

Data Visualization has come a long way since we started using images to represent data. Seeing some of the early adaptations of data really shows how far we have come through technological advantages, yet also shows the desire for us to visualize our numbers. Here are some early examples of data visualizations that have paved the path for how we report data today. 

Abraham Lincoln 

During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln had a map of the Southern United States with gradients over the map representing counties and areas based on the number of slaves they had.

Charles Minard

Charles Minard is famous for creating an infographic of Napoleon’s army going to and from Russia. What is unique about his infographic is that it not only represents the size of the army, but also the direction it moved in.

W.E.B. Du Bois 

W.E.B. Du Bois paved the way for the modern infographic in the early 1900’s. He created 60 infographics along with his students for the 1900 World Fair describing lives of black people in the South thirty years after the Civil War. According to Shawn Michelle Smith, a visual studies professor, “[Du Bois] believed that a clear revelation of the facts of African American life and culture would challenge the claims of biological race scientists influential at the time, which proposed that African Americans were inherently inferior to Anglo-Americans.”

Facebook Ads and UTM Tracking

One of the previous posts in this blog covers the limitations of tracking with a Facebook pixel. For example, the Facebook pixel measures all conversions on the website, not just the conversions made directly through the Facebook Platform.

Getting Around Limitations 
In order to bypass this limitation, marketers can create a UTM tracking code through Google Analytics. This tracking code can be added to the section of the Facebook where marketers check off whether or not they want to track the ad using the Facebook Pixel. There is a second field for "other parameters" - that is where the UTM parameter goes.

Tracking in GA 
Once a UTM code is created and added into the Facebook ad, sessions from Facebook users who clicked on the ad will be visible in Google Analytics. Marketers can easily sort by source/medium to find sessions that used the code. They can also check their conversions and filter for source/medium to see if people who clicked on the ad ultimately converted and made a purchase.

The Facebook pixel by itself has its uses, but it is definitely more accurate and effective to track Facebook ads with both a UTM parameter and a pixel. In this instance, two tracking codes are better than one.

Remarketing and the Facebook Pixel

Tracking ads on Facebook has improved over time with the addition of the Facebook pixel. While the Facebook pixel is not new, understanding the pixel, and its limitations will help your Facebook tracking and analytics.

What It Is

The Facebook pixel is a racking code that marketers and data analysts can install in the header tag of a website either directly in the code, or through a third party integration like google tag manager. The pixel code tracks Facebook users that visit you website and allows you to implement remarketing optimize bid, and track conversions.

Pixel Audiences

Once your Facebook pixel has been installed you can build audiences using the data the pixel collects. A pixel audience is generally people who have visited a website in the past 30 days. The audiences can be filtered further to include people who have or have not been to specific pages. This makes a pixel audience ideal for retargeting, marketers can target content to people that have been to a specific page of the website.

Limitations
While the Facebook pixel is extremely useful, it does have limitations.  For example, the Facebook pixel measures all conversions on the website, whether the or not the traffic came directly from Facebook.